Beloved icon of Windows history appears to be in the rear view for good

For those upset about the lack of a start button in Windows 8, prepare yourself for another disappointment -- "Windows Blue", an upcoming short-cycle successor to Windows 8, is not expected to bring the feature back.

The source of this supposed leak is CNBeta, a site with close insider ties at Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), which gained respect by accurately leaking a number of early Windows 8 details.

Other info from the site includes suggests that Microsoft will further flatten the UI on the desktop (think the Metro/Windows 8 UI style), the taskbar/desktop will get tweaks, the price will be low (or free), and the new kernel version number will be v6.3 (corroborated by other independent reports). The final remnants of the Aero UI, which was a staple of Windows Vista and Windows 7 is also being bid adieu, like the Start button before it.

The start button went the way of the Dodo with Windows 8. [Image Source: Jason Mick/DailyTech]

Neowinreports that a summer launch of Windows Blue is expected. And its contacts close to Microsoft hint that the name will be some sort of riff on Windows 8, not Windows 9, as some suspected.

(For the record you can get a Start Menu-like menu by moving your mouse to the lower left corner of the screen and right-clicking. Voilà, magic!)

There is one very important feature for me that is sorely missing in Windows:The ability to sort the tiles in the start screen alfabetically.As it is now, it is just a mess.With the old startmenu program groups are sorted alfabetically.

And everything I can expect to do is under the start-menu.In 8 there are two different control panels.The power down/restart is in a different place.And with three monitors, it is a hit and miss to bring up charms, hunting down pixels when I am sitting at a distance from my tv a bit relaxed not wanting to grab a keyboard.

These are big letdowns on Win 8, but other things are better, but I will stay on 7 due to 8 being almost unusable for me on my multi-monitor setup where I sometimes just use the mouse.